The evergreen conundrum…. what came first (No, no! This is not about poultry or ova)…. Marriage or Love? Or does there even exist a chronological correlation between these two sides of the coin of partnership?
If you looked Occidentally, you would believe that marriage is the formalization of that amorphous feeling born out of the interaction of two individuals (lately, not necessarily between two people of different chromosomal structures on the 23rd pair of their DNA double helix either!) The time sequence is always pointing in the logical alphabetical order. M never comes before L.
Move towards the rising Sun and the picture changes. Akin to the blurred silhouettes of dawn, the boundaries are no longer so sharply defined. I am of course talking more culturally than practically about the occurrence of the partnership sequence. You are suddenly hit with a phenomenon completely incomprehensible (almost reprehensible) to the Western psyche …. two near strangers pledging their troth for better or for worse, in sickness and in health! And if the separation rates of these matrimonial bindings are any indicators of the success of these matrimonial bindings, then love does indeed blossom in the bosom of the couple. How did M land up before L, and to make matters worse, make perfect logical sense?
It is a matter of which mode of substance mutation appeals to the psyche of a people. If you prefer crystallization (the formless acquiring a structure), then only the Occidental sequence would make sense. If, however, sublimation is comprehensible, then the Oriental order of the physical reality leading to a formless (not attributeless) entity would present equally logical an option. Mind over matter …. the gift of Oriental philosophy.
The “logical” western mind would like to sample the population before making its choice. In classical management jargon, the Optimizing model of decision-making. The more accommodating Oriental (I use the term loosely, to project from the Indian minds to the Oriental population), on the other hand, accepts the impossibility of narrowing down to a choice from the universal potential set. We, therefore, use the Satisficing model of decision making to some effect. The basic premise of the model being, you draft up your requirement, map each option on it sequentially and choose the first one that meets your cut-off levels. You do not hunt further to scout for a higher rating option.
Besides the magnitude of the sample size to be tested for the Optimizing model, the other pitfall in the Western execution of it is that it uses destructive sampling. You have to necessarily do the sampling fairly sequentially and therefore, when you move on from an option, you invariably burn the bridges for good. It is well nigh impossible to get back to the option with any modicum of your self-respect retained. You know, all the jazz about hell hath no fury like a woman scorned and a man's ego being more susceptible to breaking than gossamer under dewdrops.
An analysis of the "Love Marriages" in India reveals that though akin in physiognomy to the Occidental L->M model, at the anatomical level, it bears an uncanny resemblance to the traditional M->L model. An Indian love marriage should truly carry the name "Self-Arranged", as against a "Family Arranged" marriage … for it is just that. The two concerned entities become an "item" only after fairly in-depth introspection and a fairly high probability of the "item" getting formalized to a legal couple status. It is invariably not a sampling exercise.
The operational definition of what constitutes a successful marriage is highly debatable. Is it the tangible output of the marriage (the number of progeny)? Not possible … a marriage is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for progeniture. This output could be a reflection of personal choice or worse, of personal mental inadequacy.
If a survey were conducted, then happiness of the concerned individuals would rate as the primary criterion for gauging the success of the union. Happiness unfortunately is not amenable to a direct barometric estimation. It is a second or maybe higher generation tertiary variable.
Is it individual happiness? Or the happiness that is born out of the happiness of someone else? Is it physical comfort or satisfaction? Is it the freedom of personal choice? Or the security in the trammels of society?
Let me take recourse to Indian philosophy here. When an ancient seer was asked to describe the ultimate truth in physical terms, he kept saying "Neti Neti" - "Not this, Not this" to everything his students kept comparing the ultimate reality to. By that yardstick, the absence of happiness in a marriage could safely be assumed in case of a separation. No happiness, ergo no marriage. By this measure, Oriental marriages are verily the embodiments of success, given the huge differential is separation rates.
But is this conclusive proof of the superiority of the M->L model over the L->M one? Once again, let me take refuge in philosophy. There is no universal ultimate reality … to each individual, it is his or her perception of reality that matters. Frames of reference are more critical than the measure itself.
"Ask not for whom the bells toll, for they toll for thee!"
July 04, 2002: Hyderabad, India
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